Sanchez, the candidate of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, provided “information and protection” to the Beltran Leyva and Los Zetas cartels, the AG’s office said.

“He also conducted transactions with resources that came from organized crime activities,” the AG’s office said.

Sanchez, the candidate of the PRD and the Convergencia parties in the July 4 gubernatorial election, was arrested at the airport in the Caribbean resort city of Cancun.

A PRD leader said Sanchez’s arrest was politically motivated.

The charges against Sanchez are “foolishness to put him in jail” or “invented” crimes alleged at a time when he is doing well in the polls, PRD president Jesus Ortega told MVS radio.

Sanchez, who served as mayor of the Cancun suburb of Benito Juarez, has a good shot at beating Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, gubernatorial candidate Roberto Borge, Ortega said.

“The fact is that Gregorio is in a really good position, he did well as mayor, and based on that work he gained ground as a viable candidate in the elections for governor,” the PRD leader said.

“The investigations of money movements are based on these protected witnesses, who are the same ones that the prosecutors move all over the place,” Ortega said.
The witnesses are “real mercenaries” who agreed to “block the candidacy” of Sanchez, the PRD leader said.